


Two Ghosts

by iwannalovebucky



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes-centric, Drinking, Fluff, Heartbreak, How Do I Tag, I Don't Even Know, I Tried, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve, Protective Steve Rogers, Steve Feels, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, WW2, War, give them a break, i tried to be poetic or some shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 06:24:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15382620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwannalovebucky/pseuds/iwannalovebucky
Summary: When war engulfs the world Sargent James Buchanan Barnes loves for the first time.





	Two Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Based on Two Ghosts by Harry Styles.

> _Same lips red, same eyes blue_
> 
> _Same white shirt, couple more tattoos_

Steve still walked with the same determination he always had. Still standing straight as if he had to hide his crooked back. Still holding his head up high like he had to appear taller than he really was. His eyes still made Bucky dream of the sea and look at the sky like he would find Steve there when he wasn´t with him. His lips still looked like the only heaven Bucky would ever know would he dare to kiss them. He was still the little kid from Brooklyn Bucky wanted to protect so bad.

> _But it's not you and it's not me_

But he couldn´t, not here, not anywhere. He couldn´t even hug him properly anymore. And he hated Steve for it. Bucky wanted to yell at him and throw things at him rather than have Steve throw himself onto a fucking battlefield.

But he couldn´t, he had no energy left. The war had drained him of so many things, there was barely a man left. The war takes everything it wants, lives, luck and love. All the other soldiers held on for their families, their friends, their loved ones. Bucky had all of these things, way back home in Brooklyn. He forgot what he held on for; in his dreams it was his mum, in his letters it was his country, in his foxhole it was nothing. Standing for everything, falling for nothing.

And then there was Steve. Stupid, _stupid_ Steve. He just showed up and reminded Bucky of all the things he really wanted to fight for: The people he loved and wanted to protect. But how was he supposed to protect a man that ran into a fucking warzone, head over heels like he was in love with death. Bucky wished he was in love with him instead.

> _Tastes so sweet, looks so real_

So he dreamt. Of good things, like his mum´s pie or his sister´s hugs, he just kept on dreaming of things he missed. He missed the little Steve he could hold. A little boy that was so small that Bucky could hold all of him in his arms when he was sick. A small hand that would fit just so well in his own.

He wished those days back. Steve was always sick but he would rather have him sick with Bucky on his side to help him than have Steve in a goddamn war with a Bucky by his side that couldn´t protect him anymore. Bucky tried to keep up with him in fights and help him as much as possible but now he was the small one.

In his dreams Steve was so soft. In reality he was a wall of muscles. In his dreams he had to take care of Steve. In reality Steve´s biceps was about the size of his head. His dreams were so sweet, like a kiss of honey. What made Bucky the saddest was that they weren´t just dreams, they were memories.

> _Sounds like something that I used to feel_

The soldiers sit together in a foxhole night after night. They wait for new updates on their mission even though they feel like they were just left behind and forgotten. God knows how long they had spent in this goddamn hole full of mud and scared bodies.

They were on the verge of losing their minds or crying or giving up or all at once when one of them decided to talk about his love. Nobody objected to it. They all missed women.

“..used to work my ass off just so I could buy her a hotdog at Coney Island.”

“Been there,” Bucky chuckled lowly. “Done that.”

“Dames drive you crazy, don´t they? I´d do anything to get my hands on one now.”

But he didn´t do it for her. He always did it for Steve. On his good days Bucky would take him there, as often as he could, just so he could see him smile for once. He would have moved the world for that smile, every stone, every brick, every house, just for Steve to be happy. Now he was halfway in his grave already.

> _But I can't touch what I see_

Bucky had almost forgotten how much Steve meant to him. But the more he saw him in danger, the more he heard the others talk about their dames back home he became more and more aware how he wanted to have the same. He wanted to have arms that held him at night and a body that would hold him down in the morning, lips that would kiss him and hands that would hold his. He wanted to love and to be loved.

But he didn´t want some dame back home like seemingly every other soldier, he wanted Steve. And he was _right there_ but Bucky couldn´t love him, not like he wanted to. The more stories about love he heard the clearer it got for him. He had never loved, never held a woman that he wanted to have by his side at all times. He had never kissed someone´s lips and felt like heaven. He had never loved.

He would only ever love when he would hold Steve like that, when he would kiss him. He was the only one Bucky had ever wanted, the only one he wanted to protect. How could he only realize that now that he was the least safe he had ever been?

How had he been so blind, he just stumbled from date to date and from bed to bed, searching for a heaven he would only ever find between Steve´s thighs.

A heaven he would never know, goddamn it, he was dreaming of heaven on a battlefield, a place where he would most certainly never find it. And would he not have been on a battlefield he still wouldn´t have found it. Because the only person that would ever see Bucky´s heaven was _Peggy Carter_.

He was not surprised, he always knew that someday a dame would come and realize how much Steve was worth. And why would he chose Bucky if he could have _her_? She was everything Bucky wasn´t – most of all a woman. It was illegal, after all.

> _We're not who we used to be_

Bucky danced less and smoked more. Steve drew less and got more dames looking after him. He still fought, just not in back allies but in a war. Bucky still wanted to protect him, he always had. It came to him like first nature. And if he could not protect him from the war like he planned to, he would protect him from heartbreak. Maybe he was being selfish and just kept telling himself that he was doing it just for Steve but that didn´t bother him. He had him by his side; that was all that mattered.

Of course he didn´t want him to dance with Peggy, of course he was doing all of this for himself but whatever. Steve wouldn´t get his heart broken by Bucky. But Bucky would get his heart broken by Steve. That´s what he didn´t tell him.

> _We're not who we used to be_

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Steve was mad. He had every right to be.

“I wasn´t paying attention. ´M sorry,” Bucky grumbled, his hands deep in his pockets.

“No, you´re not,” was the answer Steve hissed at him as two other soldiers passed them. He looked after them until they rounded the corner. “You spilled it over her on purpose, I saw it!” He tried to keep his voice down.

“The fuck I did.” Bucky still didn´t take his eyes off the mud his feet were shuffling in. But he heard the sigh Steve let out and his hand ruffling his golden hair. Bucky wished it could be his hand touching those strands of hair that seemed to be glowing in the light of the setting sun. Fuck, he was getting romantic. _Ugh_.

“Buck.” _Don´t call me that._ “Would you please tell me what´s going on?” Just then he lifted his gaze to meet a worried pair of eyes.

“Whaddya mean?”

Another sigh, more ruffling. More glances to the corner where the soldiers would walk. “There´s something wrong with you. You´re a little off these days. _Talk to me_.”

“We´re at war, Steve. What do  you think is wrong with me?” He couldn´t tell him. Not now, not ever.

> _We're just two ghosts standing in the place of you and me_

That night neither of them seemed to get any sleep. Bucky stared at the battens of Steve´s bed as he tried to figure out what to do. He couldn´t keep him away from Peggy, he made that obvious that evening. Sighing he curled up into a tight ball, holding onto his blanket, wishing it was Steve. He wondered what their next mission would be. He wondered who would return from it.

“Steve?” His voice wasn´t even a whisper, he already regretted saying anything at all, he didn´t want him to hear his voice like that, raw and tired, shaking and thick with tears that wouldn´t spill.

“You okay?” Was the answer he got and didn´t hope for.

“Just tired.”

“We all are.”

He wants to hold him again.

> _Trying to remember how it feels to have a heartbeat_

Bucky decided to be less tired while he still had the chance to be awake. They stayed at the camp, waiting for new orders, for a new opportunity to serve a purpose he didn´t believe in. But who of these soldiers was still a believer?

There were no gods for them, only for Bucky there was a man that could give him heaven. And if Bucky couldn´t get in, he would at least try and get a little taste. Steve had changed but Bucky could still make him laugh like he used to. He could still understand him like he used to. He could still scoff at him like he used to.

And when he made Steve laugh – he wanted to pray to all of the gods nobody believed in that he could just listen to that sound for the rest of his life. His laugh seemed to be the thing that kept Bucky alive, it made his tired, hollow eyes sparkle with hope. Hope that everything might become normal again, hope that they might make out alive, hope that Steve loved him too.

But he didn´t. He loved Peggy. Everyone knew. Especially after he kissed her. Bucky would never hear the end of it. Everybody was talking about it. Just not Steve. Whenever Bucky tried to talk about it with him he would just brush it off.

Maybe he felt about her the way Bucky felt about him. Maybe she was the one keeping him live, maybe he craved her kiss as much as Bucky craved Steve´s laugh. Or maybe he felt about her the same way Bucky felt about Claire when they took a break in France, before Steve crossed the ocean. Maybe Steve just wanted to forget about all of the death surrounding him, maybe he just searched for rest between her lips and legs like Bucky had.

But then why didn´t he look for it in Bucky? He would give him all the peace in the world.

> _The fridge light washes this room white_

They waited for a new mission again. That´s all they did these days. They fought for something a kid believed in and waited for a new opportunity to lay their lives down. But they all did it. Nothing made sense anymore, except for running. Running away from enemies, be it the Germans, be it Hydra, be it home, be it love. Everyone runs from something. No one is lazy.

Tonight Bucky was running away from his dreams. Squatting down, Bucky tried to choose what to eat. God, how long had it been since he had last seen a refrigerator? He almost forgot they even existed. It´s light screamed at him, it bit his eyes and illuminated everything else. It was so loud it almost made him miss the steps coming from the hallway towards him.

There was Steve, as gorgeous as ever. Did they even buy him bigger clothes? If they did, they sure as hell didn´t really try. Bucky would really like to take them off of him. He looked like he was made of marble, the fridge light washing him silver. God, his skin must be as smooth as Bucky remembered it to be, even with all those battle scars.

“Can´t sleep either?” Bucky cocked his head. A small grin slid onto his face.

> _Moon dances over your good side_

They decided to have beer. Besides cigarettes and kisses a nice drunk night managed to do the trick of forgetting. Forgetting about war, about lost friends, about broken hearts, about laws Bucky wanted to break. They weren´t existent, not when Steve was next to him, drinking even though he couldn´t get drunk, letting him lean onto his strong shoulders, admiring his beautiful face.

He had always thought Steve was beautiful, he had always waited for a dame to see that too.

“You´re so pretty,” Bucky finally whispered, fingers brushing over Steve´s face, his own plastered with a look of sheer admiration.

“You really think so?” Even in the white of the night he could see Steve blushing. Bucky had never seen him blush.

“You´re the prettiest soldier I´ve ever seen,” Bucky whispered, his breath brushing over Steve´s neck.

> _This was all we used to need_

It was like back in the days, when they would sneak around Brooklyn. Just that back then, Bucky always had a pretty dame attached to his hip that he would call _doll_ occasionally and search for the same peace Steve had apparently found in Peggy.

Now Bucky had stopped searching for it in them. He had found his peace on a battlefield, in a soldier he couldn´t protect anymore. He found it but it didn´t belong to him. It belonged to a woman that kissed his soldier, a woman that gave his love peace at night. Bucky would never be given peace, not even when the rest of the world would have it.

> _Tongue-tied like we've never known_

Neither of them spoke for a while. Steve sipped his beer occasionally, Bucky had already downed his and stacked the empty bottles at his feet. His fingers drew soft circles on Steve´s abdomen (he really had no idea how they got there). Muscles tensed and moved beneath his fingers. He had never felt safer.

Why didn´t Steve say something? Why did he let Bucky touch him like this? Did he like it? Did he like Bucky? Would Bucky get his peace tonight?

He gently stilled his movements and splayed his hand over the soldier´s abdomen, feeling something within himself tighten as the muscles beneath his palm did the same. Almost ragged breathing was blown out into the cold air above him.

“You alrig-“

“Peggy and I, we – kissed once but.. I mean - we never.. we´re not.. we don´t.. fondue.”

“Okay,” was all Bucky managed to get out. “Okay.” He knew Steve well enough to understand half of what he meant.

> _Telling those stories we already told_

“You remember when I would buy you hotdogs on Coney Island?” Bucky´s other hand had found its way into Steve´s.

“Yeah.” His hand was squeezed lightly by the bigger one holding it. “Miss those days.”

“Hmh.” Snuggling his face into Steve´s chest he breathed in his scent: sweat, dirt, shaving cream. “You never wanted to go on the fun roller coasters.”

The chest that held his head vibrated through a chuckle. “Made me throw up.”

“That was my fondest memory.” He couldn´t help fondling with the fingers between his own.

Another chuckle rumbled through the strong chest his cheek was pressed to. “ _Was_ your fondest memory?” Soft lips were pressed into his scalp and Bucky could have melted, despite the cold air in his lungs. “What´s your fondest memory now?”

“This.”  

> _‘Cause we don’t say what we really mean_

Silence spread through them. Not an uncomfortable, just a silent one. Steve´s chest was warm and soft under Bucky´s cheek, strong and safe. He didn´t need to protect Steve anymore. Steve protected him. He was pulled underneath a warm coat that smelled like Steve´s sweat and dirt from a foxhole. Their breathing synched with each other.

His heart was so full of love for a man that had always protected him, in all ways possible. And he did now, he held him like he loved him back, like he would take the heart full of love from the soldier in his arms, like he wanted to give Bucky all the peace in the world, like that was the reason he went out on all those battlefields with nothing but a dinner _plate to protect his dusty ass, Jesus Christ Steve, what were you thinking when you –_

Bucky let out a sigh. Stupid Steve. _I love you. I need you. I want you._ “Missed you.”

“Yeah?”

“Hmh.” Why was he such a coward? He had fought in a war, _he still was_ , he had seen soldiers die, he had killed soldiers, he had been so brave so many times but he couldn´t tell the man he had known, he had _loved_ all his life what he felt. He could cry.

Instead he tried to bury his head in Steve´s chest, his emotions altogether. Maybe then he would know what Bucky felt. Or maybe he would know when Bucky held his hand tighter, breathed his scent in deeper, pulled him closer.

> _I'm just trying to remember how it feels to have a heartbeat_

“Bucky.” The whisper was desperate, needy, too much for a drunk brain to understand. But then he was pulled out of the comfort of Steve´s chest, shaky hands guiding his face, dry lips kissing his.

It wasn´t romantic, it was cold, messy, shaky, insecure, it was peace. War had drained them all, no one had a heartbeat anymore – corpses and soldiers alike. But the lovers in the white of the night – two ghosts – their synched heartbeats prayed to all of the gods no one believed in, to give them peace. If not now, then maybe in another life.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
